Persuasively engage those on such examples of the trinity is a disposer of saints when played together or back to discuss and the list. And it may seem illogical to you but it doesn’t to me and others: the examples of space, time and matter above make perfect sense to me, yet regardless 2,000 years of Christian theology affirms the Trinity. Dr. Craig: I don't seen any differentiation between the doctrine of the Trinity and the Trinity itself. according to augustine, the fact that humans are made in the image of god indicates that there should be traces of the trinity … In response to hearing of the doctrine of the trinity, people may pose the question, “but how could God be both three and one?” That is a clear contradiction, so how could that be so? The reason I feel uncomfortable with the Cerberus story is not because it isn't helpful in understanding the question of how you can have a tri-personal entity. But, when it's heated, it turns into a gas (steam) and, when it's frozen, it turns into a solid (ice). Dr. Craig: Well, exactly. And that's why I don't like analogies, I don't like to use analogies like the triple point of water, or water being steam and ice and liquid, these sorts of things. ), but it is not so complicated that no human being can understand it. A video by Tekton Apologetics on Youtube called “Try-outs for the Trinity” suggest this as the best analogy but also admits reasons to why it isn’t perfect, as no perfect analogy exists. Kevin Harris: And you would say that there are no perfect or dead on accurate analogies or even illustrations that completely capture it. Stop desperately shuffling through fallacious analogies. The mind may still boggle at this notion, at the presentation of three in one. Within this framework, Augustine proposed his famous “psychological analogy” for the Trinity. But Scripture is under-determinative with respect to how you understand eternity. Scripture affirms that God is eternal. He will construe omnipotence in the greatest terms that are logically coherent. Of course, you can use the Cerberus analogy to knock-down specific challenges to the doctrine of the Trinity. Dr. Craig responds to criticisms of his recent use of an analogy when describing the Trinity. Kevin Harris: Oh, yeah, how radical. What is a good analogy for the trinity? [3] Paul says, this is a mystery which is now made known by God. Also, I would be cautious about using triads in nature, such as solid-liquid-gas, three dimensions, past/present/future as any proof of the Trinity (not th… Kevin Harris: I also want to mention that twice now Dr. White has made intimations that on our podcast we put philosophy over the Word of God. That is modalism. The analogy draws upon the passages that speak of the Son and the Spirit “proceeding” from the Father (like John 8:42 and John 15:26). Although early Christian theologians speculated in many wayson the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, no one clearly and fully assertedthe doctrine of the Trinity as explained at the top of the main entryuntil around the end of the so-called Arian Controversy. We can make some sense out of it. We see in Colossians 2:9: However, Jesus is not the Father or the Holy Spirit—see also the ancient Trinity diagram. Hasker also objects that Leftow’s one–self theory collapses the interpersonal relationships of the members of the Trinity into God’s relating to himself, and suggests that in Leftow’s view, God would enjoy self–love, but not other–love, and so would not be perfect (2009, 161–2, 2012a, 331). There’s a simple reason they don’t work: The Trinity, as such, isn’t like anything in creation. Dr. Craig: The whole appeal to pagan mythology is just completely wrong-headed. We can still understand what the Bible says. Then there are the Augustinian analogies for the blessed Trinity, “Augustine reasons that if we can’t catch intellectual sight of the Trinity directly, at least we can see reflections, images, or indications of the Trinity in the created realm, above all in the highest part of human beings (the mind), who are made “in the image and likeness of God” (Augustine Trinity, 231 [VII.4.12]; Genesis 1:26). Kevin Harris: Is the Trinity, however, a mystery? And then we do see here we seem to have a tri-personal dog, a tri-personal entity. In fact it would be preposterous to think that Jewish monotheists would come to adapt the doctrine of God to fit these sort of mythological stories. And not just Jesus but then also the Spirit of Christ which took over his role when he left this universe. the analogy to the (on the trinity) by the north african church father augustine he points to the compatibility of unity and diversity in human personality or mind. So how can we relay this point? Since man is made in the image of God, he believed that we could look at the created order and deduce some truths about God. The constraints for doing good systematic theology, I think, are first and foremost Scripture, and then secondly what I would call perfect being theology, the notion that God is the greatest conceivable being. And that is obviously something that makes one very uncomfortable. But as we tell them how complicated it is, and how they just need to take it on faith, we are likely to lead our friends astray into confusion. So in this verse, there are two who are called YHWH: the Redeemer and the King of Israel. I mean, obviously God isn't a doctrine.
Dr. Craig: Well, I would say that's silly. Kevin Harris: Detractors of the Trinity, especially our Muslim friends and others, would say that the church got that from pagan stories. Just a few notes of caution. The sun comprises the sun itself, its light and its heat. (See 3.2 belowand section 3.1of thesupplementary document on unitarianism.) A man who is a father, a son, and a husband is not three distinct persons. And in the end I reject the analogy of Cerberus. Another common analogy is using the idea of H 2 O: these molecules form one substance, water. The phrase “light from light” is actually taken from the affirmation in the Nicene Creedwhere Jesus is said to be “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” This was in direct response to the heresy of Arius, who taught that the Son was a lesser, created being. What sense can you make of a tri-personal being? The shamrock analogy is perhaps better than the egg and apple analogies, although it shares the weakness of possibly dividing God into “parts.” Another common illustration of the Trinity involves the different states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas). That would be a contradiction. That is by no means a perfect analogy. Dr. Craig: I don't see that it's a mystery in the sense of being something that's logically incomprehensible, no. ©2021 Therefore, God Exists
hood is pattered (Eph.3:14,15). So ultimately Cerberus, though it gets you some direction toward the Trinity, it ultimately falls short. The testimony of Scripture is that there is one God who is eternally present in three persons. Also, the egg is made up of three distinct and unalike parts. Just don't fool yourself into thinking that you've got the Trinity covered. Learn what the trinity is, because there is a succinct and simple definition that is easy to understand. And pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding primitive Christianity. And then I hear you say that we can go on and try to show the rationale and that it's not contradictory and so on, in defining and describing the Trinity itself. St. Augustine searches for an analogy to help his listeners comprehend the oneness of the Trinity but the distinct works of each Person (though it’s important to remember that all Trinitarian analogies fall short). There may be no analogy of the trinity that does not break down at some point. 3. But God does not take on different modes. One of the first analogies I encountered when I first started flirting with apologetics was the infamous egg analogy. The good thing about the illustration, though, is it does help to get us thinking about how can you have a tri-personal being? I say it doesn't go far enough because even if we adjust the Cerberus story so that we now have not three canine minds, which are one dog, but we invest them with self-consciousness so that we actually have three persons which are one dog, which seems now getting very much closer to the idea of the Trinity, still, the difficulty is when Cerberus dies, when his body dies, it would seem that you have three separate persons – three souls or whatever, three minds – that wouldn't be one being. Kevin Harris: So in wrapping it up today, to address the main topic of this podcast, is the fact that analogies of the Trinity fall short? It is only like that because you are the one explaining it and you are overcomplicating it. Tertullian, for example, said of the Son of … It's talking about something that wasn't previously revealed in the Old Testament but now has been made known, such as the unity of Gentiles and Jews in the body of Christ. A worm looks up at a man. So a triangle may not be an analogy to the trinity, but an analogy to the coherence of three in one. And it was Jewish through and through from the start. They're just truths which have been previously unrevealed. See Chiara Bertoglio, “A Perfect Chord: Trinity in Music, Music in the Trinity,” Religions 4, no. A contemporary analogy for the Trinity may be drawn from quantum physics. As John 1:18 says, Jesus is “the only begotten God, in the bosom of [God] the Father.” Therefore, there is one God, who is eternally present in three persons. The Doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most central doctrines of Christianity. In his book Traces of the Trinity, Leithart dives deep into a little-known theological concept called vestigia Trinitatis. And probably the analogy that I find most helpful because I think it's a more biblical analogy in terms of finding union within distinctness. Dr. Craig: This is in reference to a Veritas Forum at the University of Central Florida where a student asked me, “Can you think of any analogy of the Trinity?” And I said, “Well, yes, in fact I can.” And I began to lay out something that I had used in the book Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview in the chapter on the Trinity. What is a good analogy for the trinity? We simply don’t have any perfect analogy. How are we to handle various attempts at illustrations and analogies of this crucial doctrine? That's the question that unitarians and other skeptics of the Trinity would pose for us trinitarians. I think that it is within human capacity to understand what the Bible reveals, or else there would not be any reason for the Bible to reveal it. We've got articles, videos and forum discussions that provide answers to all of your test prep, admissions and college search questions. So the same with the H20 illustration. True, we humans are image bearers but nothing in creation serves as an analogy for the Trinity because the Trinity is a doctrine of special (biblical) revelation not nature or reason. If water is inadequate, there are a wide array of alternative analogies we can turn to in modern theological parlance. The Bible teaches three truths: 1 – there is one God. Look to Scripture. Get Dr. Craig's newsletter and keep up with RF news and events. 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